


This Thanksgiving

by leahalexis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Holidays, M/M, Past Stiles Stilinski/Malia Tate, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 00:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8599939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leahalexis/pseuds/leahalexis
Summary: It’s Thanksgiving, and Derek is in love with his cousin’s ex-fiancé.
(Just a soft, quiet little holiday pining fic, with a happy ending.)





	

When Derek opens the door, Laura’s youngest draped over his shoulders like a cape, Stiles Stilinksi is on the other side.

He’s wearing a wool pea coat and suede gloves and a long fringed scarf but no hat, a light dusting of snow over his hair, and like he does every time he sees Stiles these days, Derek hates Malia a little for having met him first.

“Hey, man,” Stiles says warmly. “Hey there, Jo-Jo,” he says to Derek’s cape.

“ _Stals_!” Josephine squeals, reaching for him with one hand over Derek’s shoulder, the other hand clutched fiercely around Derek’s neck, and Derek says, “Let him get in and get his coat off first.”

Derek very carefully does not watch him take off his gloves.

*

There are lots of reasons that Thanksgiving is Derek’s favorite holiday. As much as his sisters joke about him being a hermit, he loves his family—he loves seeing them, especially when they all get together and he can sit quietly in the middle of all the noise and laughter. (If he sometimes feels a little lonely, seeing his sisters with their husbands, Laura’s kids, all his aunts and uncles and cousins, well—everyone gets a little lonely, sometimes. Especially during the holidays.) His parents’ house always smells like pumpkin bread and mulling spice, and the gusts of icy air that slip in whenever the door opens with a new arrival just highlight the warmth from the fireplaces in the living room.

Thanksgiving is an all-day affair at the Hales. Family staying at the house wakes up at dawn to help prepare; out of town relatives usually start arriving late morning, by which point the first round of food is laid out to cover the tables in both dining rooms. The younger kids are out back if it’s not too cold; the older ones usually skulk in the library with their smart phones. By 3 or 4 pm there are people everywhere—still just family, though, until 6 pm, when close family friends and longtime colleagues and people like Stiles, people they’ve adopted along the way, start showing up. The last guests don’t depart until after midnight, warm and full on pie and cider and mulled wine.

When Derek thinks _family_ , he thinks _Thanksgiving_. And for the last few years, whenever he thinks _Thanksgiving_ , he thinks _Stiles_.

It’s not that he never sees Stiles the rest of the year. He does, sometimes. At the store. Across the street, when he’s headed for an appointment or lunch downtown. (Stiles always waves. Derek raises his hand back awkwardly and tries not to trip.) Sometimes they’ll stop and chat, a little. Ineptly, on Derek’s part, though Stiles never seems to mind.

On occasion, too, he’ll drop by his parents’ house only to hear Stiles had left just a few minutes before, and once—improbably, only once—Stiles had still been there, in the kitchen, bent over history homework with Laura’s oldest, hand resting casually on Josephine’s head as she clamored for his attention. Derek hadn’t said anything. Just slipped back out of the doorway and to the stairs, chest tight, eyes stinging. When he’d finished with his mother in her study, discussing the permits for the back nine, Stiles was already gone.

The point is, they don’t see each other socially. Except for Thanksgiving.

Sometimes Derek imagines calling Stiles up—he has his number, copied into his phone in the early hours of the morning three Thanksgivings past from the paper address book his mother still keeps her numbers in. Just asking him to lunch. They’re—friends, sort of. Friendly. It would be unusual but not strange, if Derek wanted to catch up. But he’s never done it. He’s never really come close.

*

Once Stiles’ coat is off, passed into Derek’s hands, Josephine throws herself at Stiles’ legs, then tears off again in search of the other kids; there’s a knot of them somewhere down the main, the faint shrieks and laughter audible all the way at the front door. 

“The cider ready?” Stiles asks into the silence that follows her departure, and Derek turns back from watching Josephine to give him a withering look.

Stiles just laughs.

Derek leads the way to the kitchen, even though Stiles is barely more of a guest than Derek is, at this point. Stiles greets everyone they pass by name, stops to ask Derek’s uncle about his boat, Derek’s cousin about her dissertation. Stiles is a fixture here, family, even if he and Malia haven’t been together for years—five, this spring.

“Why is Stilinski here?” Derek had grumped the first year after they’d broken the engagement.

“You divorce wives, not children, Der-Der,” Laura had tsked, eyes bright and amused, almost certainly at his expense.

And jokes aside, Stiles really had been barely more than a child then. He and Malia had met as sophomores at UCLA; she’d started bringing him around by junior year, and they’d gotten engaged right after they graduated. It hadn’t lasted long, but they’d parted on good terms, so of course when Stiles had moved back home to Beacon Hills, Talia had given him and his sheriff father a standing invitation to the annual gathering.

“Don’t be uncharitable, Derek,” Talia had replied with a frown when he’d asked whether they were going to be inviting everyone else’s exes now, too.

These days, his mother looked at him with pity rather than disappointment whenever the subject of Stiles came up. Cora just rolled her eyes. “If you’d just _say something_ ,” she insisted, “we wouldn’t have to go through this _every year_.”

But at first Derek had been in denial, and then he hadn’t wanted to make Stiles uncomfortable—didn’t want him to feel like he couldn’t or didn’t want to come to Thanksgiving, especially when Derek knew the sheriff always worked the holiday, and that Stiles’ mother was gone, had been for a long time. And now he just didn’t see what there was to gain by speaking up. It was obvious, Derek thought, how he felt about Stiles. His whole family knew. It was hard to imagine Stiles didn’t.

In the one and only conversation they’d ever had about it, Malia—who, this year, as she did every even numbered year, was spending the holiday with her mother’s family—had agreed with Cora.

“You should say something,” she’d said the year before, as she headed out Saturday morning. She’d still been hung over from the cousins’ night out the evening before, face freshly washed but paler than usual, beanie pulled down over the bob of light brown waves she’d inherited from her mother’s side. “I’m not the reason you haven’t, am I?”

“No,” he’d answered. And she wasn’t, not really. At first, maybe. But she’d become more of an excuse than a reason years ago.

“Good,” she’d said, and patted his shoulder. “So good luck.”

Malia knew Stiles better than anyone—had once, at least. Her advice should have made him optimistic. But Malia wasn’t known for her subtlety. _Say something_ didn’t mean _I think he feels the same_. It only meant _I think you’ll be happier you did_. 

*

Once Stiles is safely in the kitchen, Derek does what he does every year: takes care to give Stiles as large a berth as possible, wandering restlessly through the house until he finally gives in to the imprudent yearning to seek Stiles out.

When he passes his father outside the living room shortly after 8 pm, the man silently inclines his head toward the den. Derek lets the twin rush of shame and longing wash over him and pull him under and down the hall, where Stiles is on the floor with a few of the younger kids playing a card game Derek doesn’t recognize, a half dozen adults deep in assorted conversations on the couches around them.

Stiles’ head lifts with Derek’s entrance. He grins.

“Derek!” one of the kids shrieks. “Plaaaaay,” two more chorus. Helpless, Derek sits. His knee bumps up against Stiles’ thigh.

When the kids are bundled off to bed fifteen minutes later, there is a moment of just him and Stiles next to each other there on the den floor before Derek moves stiffly to the overstuffed chair. Cora rolls her eyes from one of the couches, moves over to let Stiles sit next to her and asks how his dad is. Stiles’ answer involves several wildly expansive gestures as he leans forward, shirt riding up at the back.

He’s telling Cora something about paperwork ( _paperwork_!) and Derek—laughs. The sound released even before Derek realizes he’s doing it, not meaning to be so obvious about listening in, but Stiles glances over, smiles at him softly, ducks his head a little.

“Just _fuck_ already,” Cora mutters absently, then claps a hand over her mouth, presumably because of the older, more conservative family members in the room rather than the way her words, and the stiffening of Stiles’ shoulders in response, make Derek’s body flash cold with shock and shame.

He rips his eyes down and away; there’s a pink flush spreading from Stiles’ face down his neck, and Derek—Derek can’t even imagine what his own face looks like.

“I’ve got to, uh,” he says awkwardly, standing too abruptly.

“Derek, I didn’t—” Cora starts, shamefaced, but he shakes his head desperately. He doesn’t look back at Stiles as he leaves.

*

The stars are crisp and bright over the dark line of the trees of the preserve, a perfect November night. Derek breath fogs out in front of him whenever he exhales. He’s been standing at the back deck’s wood railing for the last fifteen minutes, wishing he’d thought to grab his gloves along with his coat when he’d escaped out the back door, too jittery still from Cora’s declaration to make small talk.

It’s not too much of a surprise when Stiles comes alongside Derek’s right side. “Thought I might find you out here,” he says.

The knuckles of Stiles’ left hand nudge Derek’s right. Derek look down; in it is a steaming mug, probably cider. Derek takes it.

“Just—thinking,” Derek says, even though Stiles hadn’t really asked.

“Maybe someday,” Stiles says carefully, after a pause that Derek has trouble parsing, “you’ll tell me what you’re so busy thinking about.

“Yeah, maybe,” he replies, and smiles to himself when Stiles laughs.

They both fall quiet. 

“If this is about what Cora said,” Stiles begins after a few moments, then stops, starts again. “If you’re feeling uncomfortable, I can go. I don’t want to chase you away from your family.”

“No, don’t go,” Derek says. “Don’t—It’s not—“ The words back up in his throat. “I wish Cora hadn’t said that,” he finishes finally.

Beside him, Stiles draws a breath and blows it out carefully. “Right,” he says, subdued, suddenly far away, and Derek realizes—Stiles—he—

“I’ll just—” Stiles is saying, and Derek reaches out with the hand not holding the mug Stiles brought him, catches his arm, still not quite able to look at him.

“Don’t go,” he says again. He lets Stiles’ arm slide through his grasp until his hand can close over Stiles’ slighter, warmer one. “Please don’t go.”

Stiles is silent a moment, completely still. Then, carefully, he shifts his hand to thread his fingers through Derek’s.

“Okay,” he says at last, his voice a little shaky, “so should I—come instead?”

Derek can’t stop the snort that escapes him, drops his head. “Stiles.”

“You love it.”

“I do,” he says, and finally—finally—looks at Stiles, to find him looking, smiling, back, cheeks flushed, eyes a little wet.

“I’d like to kiss you now,” Stiles says, and when Derek says, “Please,” he tugs him in gently by their joined hands, tilts his head just slightly up. He presses his mouth softly to the corner of Derek’s, then the center, then parts his lips to laugh into Derek’s mouth as Derek sets down the mug, takes Stiles’ face between his hands, and kisses him properly—full and warm.

By the time he finishes, Stiles’ arms are around his neck. Half of Derek’s family is probably at the back windows of the house, watching. Probably collecting on bets.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” Stiles says, and Derek says, “Happy Thanksgiving.”

**Author's Note:**

> Laura has watched _Clueless_ a few too many times. 
> 
> Also, the "You love it"/"I do" dialogue pairing is totally overused and yet.
> 
> BONUS
> 
> _Later that night . . ._
> 
> “When I asked her what she thought,” Stiles says, curled up against Derek’s side in Derek’s childhood bed, “Malia said she wanted to be maid of honor.”
> 
> Derek snorts. “All she told me,” he says, “was _good luck_ ,” and Stiles laughs like it’s been surprised out of him.
> 
> “Yeah,” Stiles says fondly, “she would.”


End file.
